05.08.2024. Venezuela.- An analysis by The Associated Press of the electoral records published by the opposition shows that its candidate, Edmundo González, significantly won the elections on July 28, which contradicts the declaration of the National Electoral Council (CNE), which declared dictator Nicolás Maduro the winner.
The AP reviewed nearly 24,000 images of the ballot forms, representing results from 79% of the voting machines. Each form contained vote counts encoded in QR codes, which the news agency decoded using software and analyzed, resulting in tallies of 10.26 million votes.
Chilean National Television reported the arrest of its team in Venezuela | Screenshot/ TVN Chile
According to the study, Gonzalez received 6.89 million votes, almost half a million more than the CNE says Maduro received. The counts also show that the dictator received only 3.13 million votes.
The CNE, controlled by the regime, had updated its results on Friday and reported that of 96.87% of the votes, Maduro had 6.4 million votes and Gonzalez 5.3 million.
The president of the electoral governing body, Elvis Amoroso, attributed the delay in the update to “massive cyber attacks from different parts of the world” that “delayed the transmission of the minutes and the process of disclosing the results.”
The news agency successfully extracted data from 96% of the released records. The remaining 4% of the images were of poor quality for analysis.
Opposition leader María Corina Machado called on Saturday at an opposition rally to maintain a “peaceful and civic” struggle but with “strength” since, she said, the July 28 elections marked a “milestone” on which the “transition to democracy” in Venezuela began.
Amid cries of “freedom,” Machado highlighted the strength of citizens who have taken to the streets despite the repression against the demonstrations that took place between Monday and Tuesday, in rejection of the official election results that declared dictator Nicolás Maduro the winner.
@ADNCuba
